Home
by Aconitum-Napellus
Summary: Acting as a honey trap isn't fun, but Illya always does his job. Not as heavy as my recent stories. Contains dubious consent/drugged sex. Slash.


Shanghai is a long way from home, however you want to pick it. It's a long, long way from New York City, from his little apartment with its densely packed bookshelves and the stacks of journals and the clothes tossed over the back of the chair in his bedroom, where most people don't see them. It's a long way from his cramped kitchen with the bare necessities for cooking, and his favourite mug and the spare reading glasses left on the counter and the newspaper still open at page seven, where he was idly reading a story about the impact of his own organisation on gang crime. That was where he was when he got the call. _Beep beep beep. Mr Kuryakin? Mr Waverly. I want you on the next flight to Shanghai. A mission for you. It's delicate. You're the best man for the job._

How quickly everything stopped. He keeps a suitcase packed. Just the essentials. Spare suit and shirts. Pyjamas. Shaving kit. Soap and washcloth. He always slips in a book, something that won't matter if he loses it, something that won't give him away. Just something to entertain his mind on the flight. It's usually in English, sometimes in French. Never in Russian. Russian is too damning, wherever he is.

He reads the book on the plane, cover to cover, and when he gets to his destination he picks up another. There are always English books in airports, sometimes French, sometimes Spanish. His Spanish is just good enough to get through a novel. So he ends up reading Ian Fleming, and he smiles at the irony as he lies there in his sweltering hotel room, flicking through the pages. It would have been nice to find something in Russian. It would have been nice to indulge in something new from his home country. But it would be dangerous. The Fleming is words, at least.

Shanghai is a long way from Ukraine as well. He's closer in distance, but much, much further in other ways. It's a long way from that apartment that makes his New York place look like a decadent luxury. A long way from the bedroom that he shared with his parents, listening to his father's snuffling snores and his mother's occasional grunts. A long way from those nights, every now and then, when he lay there with his head under the covers, awake when they thought he was asleep, and he heard tender murmurings and little protests, and then the giving in, the little gasps, the rhythmic jolts of the bedhead against the wall. That was his first introduction to the animal nature of sex.

His second introduction was a swift surprise, not really something he'd aimed for, no plan. He was fifteen, and Kyiv was still a desperate, struggling ruin, rebuilding itself after the Germans and the Red Army had finished its terrible rape of the city that brought him up. He remembers Anichka beckoning him into that old wreck of a factory with such a smile on her face, a smile like the sun. He remembers how it was midsummer and how he woke every other night from dreams, dreams he couldn't remember but that left his covers sticky over his groin. How his entire body seemed to be made for one animal urge. And then Anichka taking him by the hand and saying, 'We'll explore, yes? It's fun to explore. Have you ever been in this place? There's no one here. No one goes here.'

He remembers the empty office, broken window, sheets of paper scattered over the floor, bleached by summer sun and watermarked from melting snow. The old typewriter left on one of the desks, its keys sticking up on black stalks like something of an insect. The piece of sacking someone had tacked over the window, implying that he and Anichka weren't the first to use this room since it was abandoned in the war.

And she had led him in by the hand and shut the door, squeaking its damp-swollen boards into the distorted frame, and then she had opened the top buttons of her blouse and smiled at him again, tempting and nervous and full of energy like the sun, her skin tanned with the sun just down to that second button. Her breasts were lily white, her nipples like rosebuds, and he had touched them like a postulant let into a reliquary, touched his tongue to those hardening nubs, brushed his cheek against the adolescent swells and ran his fingers along her ribs.

'It's all right, Illyushka,' she had said, and her lips had pressed against his, her tongue hot in his mouth, and then her hand had touched him through the fabric of his trousers, had felt how hard he was there, and his entire face had burned with blood because that was something you _always_ hid, behind stacks of books, behind your school satchel, behind the folds of your coat. She had laughed at his shyness and called him sweet.

'It's all right,' she had told him again, and she had peeled off her own clothes like a lily shedding its petals, stood there like a pale stamen, her arms a little away from her body, her hair a golden cloud. For years he had sworn to himself that she had a halo around her. For years he swore that she had shimmered in gold. Her name meant _grace_.

She had felt like grace enveloping him as she gently teased away his clothes. She had felt like grace when her cool fingers had closed around the heat of his cock, had stroked up and down and up again. She had felt like grace when she touched his balls, and he had almost come straight away, her hand cupping him, and he had stuttered away from her, gasping, trying so hard to control himself and not embarrass himself like a child. Lord, she had felt like grace when she had lain down on the floor and spread her legs and he had stared at the petals there and held himself in hand and come down over her and ever so slowly, ever so carefully, sunk himself inside.

It hadn't taken long. It hadn't taken long at all. He thought he didn't know what to do, but his body knew, and she knew. She made all the right sounds. And then he had been lying over her, panting in the heat, feeling the silk of her skin all along his body, the swells of her breasts pressed by his flat chest, the heat of her cunt around him, holding him until he softened and couldn't stay inside any more.

He had been terrified for months, watching her for signs, watching the flatness of her belly under her clothes. She had hardly spoken to him afterwards. She had never acknowledged what they had done. He saw her with other boys, and he tried not to go crimson when he looked her in the eye.

Kyiv is a very long way from this hotel room in Shanghai. He's such a long way from everything. He wants to pull out his communicator, just to hold it in his hands, even, to roll the cool metal between his palms and know that he _could_ call home. He wants to call home. Just check in. Sometimes it's good to call back to Earth even when you're in another galaxy.

But his communicator, along with every other incriminating item, is secure in a locker at the airport. His usual wallet. His U.N.C.L.E. card. Even his gun. He can't risk it. He can't risk a single device. He is truly on his own. His mind is his only weapon.

He dresses in slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. It's not his normal style, but it's the style he will adopt while he's here. Outside the evening light is translucent, like being deep under water. The city isn't quiet. It never is. He can hear traffic, the clash of bicycle pedals, the rise and fall of the local dialect like an exotic musical composition in his ears. He knows little phrases; he's good at languages. He doesn't know enough to understand the shouts and murmurs and conversations outside, though.

He looks at himself in the dirty mirror in the bathroom down the hall, ruffles his hands through his hair to give it a slightly different style, and then goes downstairs. All he has is money in his pocket and a fake ID. That, and condoms. Always condoms. He learnt when he was fifteen in Kyiv that whatever drives one might have, it's always necessary to defend oneself. Whether it's with a gun or hands or cutting words or a thin skin of rubber just depends on the situation.

It's so hot outside that the air feels solid every time he breathes in. It's like swimming underwater. There are lights starring the night, those up-and-down voices everywhere, rickshaws and bicycles and foul-exhaust cars. There are street vendors selling pork, snake, cat, dog, grasshoppers. If it can been fried in oil or doused in spices they are selling it. He walks past all of that. It takes a lot to put him off eating, but on a night like this he prefers not to have a full stomach. He prefers a little caffeine, a little alcohol, but to keep the lightness in his stomach that will let him twist and writhe and run if necessary. It's very important to be able to run.

The nightclub is deep in a maze of narrow streets, and the only sign above the door is something neon which no longer works. The letters are English, twisted out of tubes of glass, but dull and smoked pearly black in places. _Toppers_. He wonders if the person who chose that name had any idea what it meant. Perhaps it just sounded nice.

He walks into the place, and no one reacts. There is music thudding through the room, distorted, too loud, filling the murky air. There are bodies moving, almost all men, almost all close to each other, so close he's not sure how they can stand the heat. Some are just dancing. Some of them are kissing. Some are doing more. They must pay a lot of bribes to keep this place open. It smells of sweat and booze and smoke and stronger things.

He sees his mark straight away, but he ignores him. He's too used to this kind of thing. He goes up to the bar and settles himself on a stool and orders a drink, tall and cold. It's not his usual drink, but he's playing a part. The cold is good, and the little paper parasol gives him something to twiddle between his fingers. A guy sits down next to him, and he barely gives him a glance. The guy puts a hand on his thigh, and he slides his gaze sideways, looks the man up and down, and murmurs, 'Not my type. Sorry.'

The man is forthright. 'I've got a cock. You've got a cock – and a tight arsehole, I'll bet.'

The man's hand slides sideways, into the crease between his legs, feeling the soft bundle beneath the fabric. He's reminded forcefully of Anichka and that little abandoned office in Kyiv. He's reminded of her young hand and his boy's body, and of the flush that ran through his skin.

' _Not_ my type,' he repeats, and when he closes his fingers around that man's hand to move it away he surprises the man with his strength. There's a kind of respect that usually runs through people in these places. A respect for strength. The man puts his hand back on the bar, and when he's served his drink he moves away.

It's a surprisingly short time before his mark comes and takes the vacant seat. Perhaps it's inevitable. The man likes blondes, and there aren't many of those in this Shanghai club. He likes men who are smaller than himself, men who look like they can be dominated. It's easy to look like you can be dominated when you're small even if you could kill a man with a single blow in the right place.

They leave together after a while, just a little warm and loose with drink. The man's arm is around his shoulders right until they step into the street. Then he drops his arm and they walk with a decorous distance between them. The Shanghai police won't be kind to queers.

'Your place or mine?' the guy asks.

'Mine,' he says very casually, but there is never any question that he'll agree to go to that man's room. He needs to be on his own territory. He's searched his own room thoroughly. If there are any bugs they will have to have put them in in these few hours he's been away. There's far less risk.

He wishes, not for the first time, that his partner were here; even just in the city, but in the room next door would be better. This kind of situation is always fraught with risk. If he'd just gone to a bar to pick up a guy there would be a certain level of risk, but in this business that risk is multiplied exponentially.

'You're a hot little thing,' the man says when they step into his room. He slips a hand onto Illya's behind, and Illya keeps himself relaxed, lets him feel and stroke. 'I want to tie you up and fuck you.'

There's no hesitation. No coy attempts at persuasion. Men don't woo each other.

'Oh, well,' he replies, looking down. 'I really don't – I don't like – '

He'll do a lot, but he won't be tied up. It's such a small step from playful bondage to breathplay, to hands around the throat, to the life being squeezed out of him once the man has got what he wants.

'Oh, come on, don't be a fucking pansy,' the man says. 'Come on. Haven't you been tied before? It'll feel so good. Trust me.'

'Well, how about I tie _you_ up?' he asks. He wants his voice to be cool, but he makes it uncertain instead. He's not uncertain at all. He could tie this man up easily. He's good at knots.

The man clears his throat and laughs a little, then says, 'Listen, you got glasses? Can you order something to the room?'

'No need,' he says. He was prepared for this. He has two plastic cups, and he has a couple of bottles of the cheapest whiskey he could find. It's the kind of stuff he'd usually use as disinfectant. He's poured this stuff into bullet wounds in the past. He opens a drawer that contains nothing but whiskey and condoms, tosses his wallet in, takes out a bottle. What a sad place a hotel room is.

He pours two cups almost brim full, and the man laughs, looking him up and down.

'You think you can hold that much liquor, a little thing like you?'

'Try me,' he says.

He's used to downing vodka and slivovitz and feeling like he picked up paint stripper by mistake. This is like water in comparison, but he doesn't underestimate it. It's stupid to underestimate anything. It has enough alcohol in it to affect him. He can hold his drink very well, but he's not invulnerable.

It's not long before he's lounging back on the bed, that man beside him. The ridiculousness of the situation threatens to have him laughing. The man has taken off his shirt and slacks because it's hot, but he's still wearing his socks. He's sitting on the bed in white underpants, grey socks on his feet. His skin is lightly sheened with sweat. He's muscled. His hair is dark and slicked to his head with some kind of cream. He's not entirely unattractive, in a basic, animal way. His cock makes a dark ridge through the white of the underpants. There's a little dark hair showing at the edges of the fabric where his thighs meet his pubis, and trailing up from the waistband to his navel and broadening over his chest. His nipples are tan, hard little nubs, nothing like Anichka's rosebuds, nothing at all. Perhaps, perhaps, if Illya had drunk enough, if he were desperate enough, he would fuck this by choice.

But this isn't choice. He hasn't drunk enough. This is _a mission for you. It's delicate. You're the best man for the job._ What do those words mean? Is there a mark on his file? Is it down there, saying his abilities extend to fucking men as long as the organisation requires it? He doubts it. Waverly is far too delicate for that. He'd never write that down. But he knows it's true.

The man is getting looser, turning a little, his finger touching the buttons on Illya's shirt. He remembers Anichka. There have been a lot of men and women since that time, but she was the first. She will always be in his mind.

He would rather brush the man's fingers aside and get up off the bed and do this himself, but that isn't the character he's playing. He won't be tied up, but he's not supposed to be strident. He's supposed to be easy, unthreatening. Right up to the point where the man tries to kill him, he needs to be like a pliant little fuck toy. So he lets the man undress him. He lets him tease the clothes from his body. When he's naked, socks and all, and the man brushes a hand over his soft cock, he doesn't push him away. Anyway, it feels good. It feels strangely good to be touched.

He drinks more. They both drink more. He's starting to feel more relaxed. He's very careful to always pour the man a rather larger cup, and to drink his more slowly, and sometimes to tip a little over the edge of the bed when the man isn't looking. It's dangerous to get too drunk. But he is a little too drunk, just a little.

He tries to get him talking. _What are you in town for? Where are you from?_

The man isn't interested. He wants a fuck. He doesn't want conversation. But Illya makes himself seem nervous, makes it seem as if he needs to be persuaded. He gleans pertinent little facts from the man's words. He knows now where his hotel is. He knows how long he's staying there for. He knows the name of some of his colleagues. After a while he knows the name of his first pet and his favourite drink and that he doesn't call his mother as often as she would like. All these little things that will enable him to piece things together, to make a patchwork quilt out of all those dropped words that will cover exactly what he wants.

And then the man is murmuring, 'Enough. That's enough of that. I didn't come here for talk. I came here because you looked like you had a hot, sweet ass, and I can already see you've got a hot, sweet dick. I want a piece of all that.'

'Oh, well – '

He's not supposed to be _too_ easy. He's not supposed to be too hard. It's difficult to pitch it just right. That man's hand is on his cock again, and he's hardening, damn it. It's good, really. He needs to respond. But he hates it when his body acts of its own accord. He hates to be out of control.

'There now,' the man says, running his hand hard over the length of Illya's cock. His foreskin slips back, exposing the head. The man licks his thumb and swirls it on the most sensitive part, and he gasps involuntarily. 'That's good, isn't it? That's a good boy.'

He doesn't like the man's tone. He doesn't like being submissive. But he lies there and pretends, because that's his job. It's all about pretending. And it's not too bad. Aside from the tone, aside from the fact that this is just the wrong man, the touch is good. He has a good, firm touch.

With his other hand the man picks up that plastic cup and presses it against Illya's lips, and he opens his mouth automatically and swallows what's in there. It's bitter, and it takes him by surprise.

'What – What was – ?'

'Just something to relax you a bit, sweetheart. You're too tense,' the man says, and Illya's heart gives a jolt.

 _Fuck_. Fuck, he's been so stupid. Never, _never_ take anything offered by someone else's hand. The sensation creeps over him inexorably. He feels weird, he feels odd, he feels as if his limbs aren't quite his own. It's like being drunk, _really_ drunk, drunk in a way he hasn't been in years. He lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling and the little bits of peeling paint and the fan that doesn't work, and says, slurs really, 'I've got rubbers.'

'Fuck that,' the man says. His voice is harsher than before. 'Fuck that, you pussy. I want to be able to feel what I'm in.'

Herpes. Chlamydia. Syphilis. The words swim in his brain.

'No, don't,' he tries to say, but there isn't really anything he can do. The man doesn't even need to tie him up now. He's coming over him, his mouth everywhere on him, taking his hardening cock in between his lips, sucking him so hard that he moans aloud. His thighs are pushed back towards his chest, there's something slick and wet between his legs, and then the man is entering him, hot, hard, over and over again, fucking him so hard and so urgently, and he can hardly move at all.

God. _God._ It hasn't felt like this in years. It's all wrong. All wrong. It hurts, and he moans, and the man moans in an entirely different way, and then they are both coming, that man inside him, Illya across his own chest in a cool splatter, in little spurts.

The man's hands are on his throat. God. He doesn't know how to fight this. He doesn't know what to do. His legs are like rubber, his head is spinning. He's choking, choking –

His body knows. Like it did with Anichka, his body knows something of these primal responses. Sex. Survival. He doesn't know how he does it, but he's twisting, struggling. It all feels so slow. A half-drunk bottle of whiskey spins across the floor and the sound it makes is a strange, slow echo in his brain. He flails his arms, uselessly, almost uselessly, but it's enough. His fist hits flesh with bone beneath. Something falls, the light from the night stand. It's enough of a noise. He manages to shout, to scream like a woman. That noise is enough. He couldn't have fought this man off, not in a million years, not with that drug in his system. The man has a foot of height on him and he is drunk but strong, and he couldn't have fought him off. But the scream is enough. Someone is banging on the door and shouting. And suddenly the man is off him, snatching up clothes, dragging them on, and slipping out of the window like a thief. He is a thief. He is a _fucking_ thief. He's so angry but incapable of even rising off the bed.

There is banging on the door again, and he coughs and coughs and tries to form words, and eventually he says, 'It's all right. Nightmare. It's all right.'

The banging stops. He lies there, panting, limbs splayed, like a drowning man tossed up by the surf. His throat is bruised and he's wet between his legs and his cum is drying on his chest. He just lies there. He feels halfway to death. He's not really scared. He doesn't think the drug is dangerous even if it's making him feel as if he's dying. Even if it were there's nothing he can do because the person knocking has gone away, and he doesn't think he can stand. Under the heat and the slurring faintness of the drug and the exaggerated effects of the alcohol in his system, there's nothing he can do at all. He lies there watching the ceiling and the unmoving fan and insects swirling in the air like fighter planes far, far away. After a long time he falls asleep.

He wakes after hours and hours, cursing himself, staring at the ceiling, his head a throbbing mess, his limbs shaking. It's light in the room. The streets are noisy outside. His chest is crusted and there's still something sticky between his legs, and his throat hurts so much he can hardly swallow. He can hardly talk. He reaches out a hand and his fingers shake. He picks up a bottle of whiskey and swallows a mouthful, and the stuff burns in his chest.

It's an hour before he can manage to sit up. He coughs whenever he tries to take a deep breath. He's sore between the legs and his face feels sore and there are bruises about his upper arms and his wrists.

 _God_.

He hasn't come quite that close to death in a long time. He wishes it had been longer.

When he finally manages to pull on clothes and stagger to the bathroom down the hall he just stares at himself in the mirror. He looks like a rape victim. He's not. He has to tell himself that with a firmness that is fragile over uncertainty. He went into this with his eyes open. He invited the sex. He didn't expect the drug, but the sex was always going to happen. But he looks terrible. There's a spreading bruise over his left eye and a necklace of bruising around his throat. He doesn't even remember that man hitting him, doesn't remember him holding him down hard enough to bruise his arms. He has bruises on his thighs and scratches on his chest. When he washes himself slowly and carefully in the basin his muscles ache and his brain seems to thump against the hard curve of his skull, and he finds himself curling over the basin and vomiting into the plughole. Perhaps that's the last of that drug. He hopes it's the last of the drug.

That man was a fucking thief. When he comes back to his room to gather together his things he finds that his wallet complete with cash and the false identity card is gone. He has a few coins in his trouser pocket, but that is all. When he goes to check out he argues with the staff harder than his head can take and longer than his voice can manage, and finally arranges to have the hotel bill paid by credit card. He has just enough in coins for a bus to the airport. It's too far and too hot and he feels too ill to sit in a crowded, rattling, stinking bus for that long, but he does it anyway. He doesn't have any choice. He collects his things at the airport and makes a quick check in with his communicator, but he doesn't say exactly what happened. He doesn't need to talk about that. He can hardly make his voice work enough just to give the check in and then sign off.

What a fucking country… He's so glad to be on the plane at last, watching the land diminish beneath him, watching it become faint and misty and then covered with cloud. The sun is suddenly brilliant and hot on his cheek through the window. The clouds curve below him to the horizon. The sky curves above him like an eggshell, dark at the centre and pale at the edges. He's in the middle of things, the plane a fly crawling over a white sheet. The sun on the clouds is so bright it makes his head ache harder, and he pulls down the blind.

He sits there and rests his head against the seat, and breathes. It's so good to be in a cabin with air conditioning, with a glass of alcohol in his hand that he knows isn't spiked. It's not whiskey. He can't stomach whiskey. Luckily they have palatable vodka. Luckily there isn't anyone in the seat next to his, so he doesn't have to talk. He can barely talk at all. His voice is a rasp, and he's glad that his collar and tie hide the purple bruises there. He sips the vodka and wishes his head didn't ache, and wishes he were home.

When they come around with lunch he is so hungry that he can't resist. He eats a dubious selection of sandwiches which hurt his throat and hit his empty stomach and make it groan and growl. Ten minutes later he's in the aircraft bathroom and he's sitting on the toilet, bowels streaming, as he vomits into his cupped hands. He's never been more miserable. His stomach is in agony, but finally he is empty. He cleans up as best he can and then he stands and stares at himself for a moment in the mirror. He looks like a ghost. His eyes are hollow and half his face is bruised and around that his skin is like wax.

The room stinks and there's still the remains of vomit on the floor. He goes out and makes deep apologies to an air stewardess for the mess in the bathroom. He staggers back to his seat, and he tries to read, but he has no stomach or patience for Bond, and instead he sleeps and sleeps.

It's a long, long flight. The plane lands in Heathrow and he's briefly in England, close to another home. How far is it to Cambridge from here? How far to Angel Court and the little room that was his home while he studied for his PhD? He's closer to London and the flat he rented for a few months while he worked at the London HQ. He feels a nostalgia for the dull accents and the cups of tea and the gentle summer rain. This was where he learnt to speak English. This was where his life gently transmuted from the introverted Russian academic to worldly agent. So much happened here.

But he's on a plane again after a few hours, shaking with exhaustion and hunger and wishing that he dared to eat. He doesn't dare. That drug is still in him, he's sure. Just the thought of food makes his throat close up and his stomach lurch. He risked a cup of black tea in the departure lounge, and he stirred in sachet after sachet of sugar, but he won't have more than that. He gets on to the next plane in a daze, wishing he weren't alone, wishing he had someone to hold his arm and guide him and tell him not to worry, it's safe to sleep.

He doesn't have any choice about sleeping. He couldn't stay awake if he tried. Even the sugar in his tea and a double martini don't help. He lolls against his seat and even though he has a companion beside him now he doesn't talk and doesn't worry about being expected to talk. Perhaps he doesn't look like a man who wants to talk. Perhaps the bruises and his cadaverous look put people off. Anyway, the only interaction is when the stewardesses try to serve him food, and he refuses that without prevarication. He just drinks coffee. Coffee and more coffee. He's sick again in the aeroplane toilet, and there's nothing in it but alcohol and coffee, all mixed together with acid and bile.

He staggers from the plane in JFK and is so glad of his U.N.C.L.E. identification, because when he gets to immigration, bruised and exhausted and almost falling over, he shows them his card and they take in the state of him, and not only do they usher him through without issue, but they put him in the hands of a capable young man who takes his case from him and walks him to the exit and secures him a cab.

'We're so grateful for all you people do, Mr Kuryakin,' the young man says, and Illya smiles, remembering the story on page seven of the paper, where some people weren't so grateful. It's a warm feeling, though, to be praised like that, and he's too tired to be cynical of the man's puppy dog innocence. It's so good to be home.

He sits in the cab, too wired now to fall asleep, too exhausted to fall asleep, and he watches the lights of the city sparkle against the dark sky and glint on the water as they cross the bridge. The stop lights are smears of colour against his eyes. Times Square is a riot. Cars honk and stop and start and people shout, and scents of hotdogs and pretzels and exhaust come in through the open windows of the cab on the summer air, and he's so, so glad to be home.

He walks in through the night entrance and the corridors are so bright that he winces. The receptionist tries to tell him to go to medical, but he goes straight to Waverly's office. Medical can wait. He sits in a black chair at Waverly's table and he exhaustedly recounts everything he learnt, unloads every little fact, even the name of that man's first dog. Then he stumbles down to medical and undergoes the briefest of examinations. They check his wounds and take swabs and blood tests, and they give him shots.

And then he is free. He's been passed by medical. The debriefing is over. His information was good. He can take that from this case, at least. He went there to do a job, and he did it. He got everything he needed and he has reported to his superior, and now there's nothing left to do but stop. Rest. Sleep.

When he gets back to his apartment Napoleon is there to open the door for him and usher him in. It's so good to see him there. He had expected to go home to an empty space and collapse onto his sofa and just try to recover something from the shell that he feels he's become. But Napoleon is there and he puts a hand on his arm and draws him over the threshold and shuts the door, and then he is kissing him, ever so gently because the bruises are obvious, but with such love.

They stand there for a few moments after the kissing stops, forehead against forehead, Napoleon's hands on his arms. He breathes very slowly, breathing in the scent of home, which is as much the scent of Napoleon's aftershave and hair product as it is the scent of his apartment. Then Napoleon says, 'Come on in, IK. You look exhausted. I've got coffee on the stove.'

He wonders if his stomach can take it. Apart from those awful, quickly rejected sandwiches, nothing has passed his lips in thirty six hours but liquids. He had so much coffee in the last few hours of the flight, almost stiff with sugar, but the last taste of coffee was it passing his lips as vomit, and he's not sure he can take it.

He's wavering on his feet, his hands shaking, but Napoleon's hands close around his and steady them. In the kitchen the newspaper is still open at page seven and his spare reading glasses are still lying on the counter. Napoleon pours coffee into two mugs and he starts to tilt a whiskey bottle towards the rim to make it Irish. Even the smell from the open bottle makes him feel sick. He's not sure he'll ever be able to drink whiskey again. He holds up his hand and says, 'No. Please. Just coffee.'

He has the coffee as it is. Straight. Black. So hot it burns his mouth. The caffeine makes him dizzy. They sit on the sofa and Napoleon suggests getting take out, and he grimaces and shakes his head. He couldn't eat. He's so tired he could faint. Napoleon cups a hand against his cheek and strokes about the edge of the black eye ever so lightly, and says, 'Things got rough?'

Napoleon knows exactly what he went to do. He doesn't judge or blame. He never does.

'Things got rough,' he says.

He lifts a hand and loosens his tie and flicks open the first few buttons of his shirt, and Napoleon touches a finger there too, as if bruises need to be touched to be believed.

'Rough?' he asks, his voice worried now. 'That's more than rough.'

He leans his head back. He's so tired.

'Yes, it was more than rough,' he says.

He's more incapable with tiredness than he was with that drug. He can hardly lift his mug. And then Napoleon is lifting him, carrying him into his bedroom, laying him on the bed. Gently, ever so gently, he undoes buttons, laces, fly, and strips him to nudity. He remembers the man in Shanghai, and his stomach lurches. He remembers Anichka in Kyiv, and his stomach flips in a different way. He remembers Napoleon so many times, so many nights and days and places, and despite everything he feels a little quiver of desire.

The sheets feel so smooth and clean around him. Napoleon discovers the bruises on his arms and wrists, on his thighs. He paints antiseptic lotion on the scratches on his chest. He asks, 'You had medical look you over?'

'Yes,' he replies. 'They've taken swabs and given me antibiotics. It'll be a few days for the results.'

'I think, my love, you won't be wanting to do anything like that for a few days anyway,' Napoleon says. 'Didn't you use protection?'

'I tried,' Illya replies darkly. 'He put something in my drink.'

'Oh.'

Napoleon's response is so short that there shouldn't have been any meaningful intonation, but Illya can hear a world in that one syllable. Bitterness. Concern. Love. So many emotions in one sound.

'You'll be all right,' he says after a moment.

'I know I will,' Illya says. 'I'm always all right.'

Napoleon strokes a thumb down Illya's cheek, the other cheek from the one with the bruise. He is so tender that Illya almost cries.

'Can you eat anything?' Napoleon asks. 'Can I get you anything? Toast?'

'No,' Illya says. He doesn't think his stomach would take it. 'Maybe in the morning. Maybe it'll be out of my system by then.'

'In the morning,' Napoleon echoes.

Illya is so tired he can hardly keep his eyes open. He has no idea what time it is. He doesn't even know if it's night or day, but he pretends it's night because he's so tired. Napoleon fetches a cup of water and slips two white pills between Illya's lips, and makes him drink. He adjusts the pillow a little under his head. He straightens the blankets and strokes Illya's cheek again with his fingertips.

Napoleon takes his clothes off too. He snuggles himself into the single bed, making himself into a question mark around Illya's straightness. After a little while Illya turns onto his side and curls, and Napoleon spoons around him, an arm over his chest, legs over his legs. He is warm and strong and his heart beats steadily against Illya's back. His hand settles broadly on Illya's stomach, lying against the sickness and emptiness and making it somehow feel all right. His lips touch his neck and shoulders and hair so softly in little kisses that melt in the darkness. The little pains from the bruising and choking slip away. He feels so loved.

This is exactly what he needed in Shanghai after that man had left. It is what he needed on the plane, and when he was sitting in Heathrow waiting for his connection, and in the cab from the airport. All the way home this was what he needed, Napoleon around him like a harbour around a boat while the storm rages outside. Napoleon's strong arms folded over him and his legs around him, and his warmth and the beat of his heart. Napoleon's breaths, soft and warm over his neck, damp in his hair. The little murmurs and soothing whenever he stirs. The stroking when his muscles ache. The hand lightly on his back when he staggers to the bathroom to be sick, and the hand on his arm guiding him back to bed afterwards. And Napoleon becoming a harbour around him again, sheltering him as he slips into sleep, breathing with his breath, heart beating with the rhythm of his own heart. This is home.


End file.
